The Mil & Aero Blog

From time to time, organizations need to restate their primary missions -- not only to reinforce their overall goals, but also to chart how their courses might be evolving. So it is with Military & Aerospace Electronics, whose mission is to uncover trends and enabling technology in defense, space, and commercial aviation applications.

It's true that Military & Aerospace Electronics identifies trends in electronic and electro-optic technologies. We've been doing this since I helped found the magazine in late 1989. It was then, and still is to this day, our mission to track technologies from the chip-and-board level through finished subsystems to identify how these devices represent enabling technologies for the integrators of aircraft, combat vehicles, surface ships, submarines, and spacecraft.

It also is part of our core competence to identify how devices from chips to subsystems represent enabling technologies for finished applications like communications systems, radar, sonar, electronic warfare, navigation and guidance, laser systems, avionics, command and control, satellites and telemetry, and so on.

To do this usefully, Military & Aerospace Electronics identifies and explains trends in the component technologies from chips to subsystems -- trends involving topics such as power and thermal management, high-speed fabrics and networking, circuit board form factors and standards, microprocessors, field-programmable gate arrays, power electronics, diodes, fiber optics, MEMS and nanotechnology, software-engineering tools, sensors of all kinds, advanced I/O, test and measurement, and so on.

We achieve these goals not only through our print magazine and supplements that you've come to know over the years, but also through a Website that's updated every day, the Webcasts we host periodically throughout the year, our newly improved online buyers guide, which also comes out in print once a year, our electronic newsletters -- the weekly e-newsletter and our monthly Defense Executive e-newsletter for executive managers -- and our Military & Aerospace Electronics Forum conference and trade show.

What this all boils down to is Military & Aerospace Electronics puts buyers and sellers together. A radar system designer, for example, has performance requirements and a set range of operating conditions. It's our job to help alert that designer to the latest enabling technologies to help him meet his objectives.

We can help that designer understand what to look for; what's bleeding-edge technology, and what's tried-and-true; where cooling, size and weight, and power consumption are big factors; what he needs to look for in computational performance; and what range of components might be rugged enough for his application.

This is what we do. You don't have to take my word for it; take a look at the video below to see what others in our market are saying about Military & Aerospace Electronics.

Welcome to the lighter side of Military & Aerospace Electronics. This is where our staff recount tales of the strange, the weird, and the otherwise offbeat. We could put news here, but we have the rest of our Website for that. Enjoy our scribblings, and feel free to add your own opinions. You might also get to know us in the process. Proceed at your own risk.

John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.

Courtney E. Howard is senior editor of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine. She is responsible for writing news stories and feature articles for the print publication, as well as composing daily news for the magazine's Website and assembling the weekly electronic newsletter. Her features have appeared in such high-tech trade publications as Military & Aerospace Electronics, Computer Graphics World, Electronic Publishing, Small Times, and The Audio Amateur.

John McHale is executive editor of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, where he has been covering the defense Industry for more than dozen years. During that time he also led PennWell's launches of magazines and shows on homeland security and a defense publication and website in Europe. Mr. McHale has served as chairman of the Military & Aerospace Electronics Forum and its Advisory Council since 2004. He lives in Boston with his golf clubs.

THE MAE WEBSITE AUTHORS ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENT AND ACCURACY OF THEIR BLOGS, INCLUDING ANY OPINIONS THEY EXPRESS, AND PENNWELL IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR AND HEREBY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL LIABILITY FOR THE CONTENT, ITS ACCURACY, AND OPINIONS THAT MAY BE CONTAINED HEREIN. THE CONTENT ON THE MAE WEBSITE MAY BE DATED AND PENNWELL IS UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE UPDATES TO THE INFORMATION INCLUDED HEREIN.